• Jason Hoekstra
The Myth of the 10x Engineer vs. The 10x Team
Why individual brilliance isn't enough to scale, and how to build systems that multiply collective output.
In the tech industry, we are obsessed with the idea of the “10x Engineer”—that mythical individual who can out-code an entire team. While high performers certainly exist, optimizing for individual heroism is a strategy destined to fail at scale.
The Bus Factor
If your architecture depends on one person understanding the entire system, you don’t have a CTO; you have a single point of failure.
Force Multipliers
True engineering leadership isn’t about being the smartest person in the room. It’s about building force multipliers:
- Clear Abstractions: allowing juniors to contribute safely.
- Automated CI/CD: reducing friction for deployment.
- Psychological Safety: encouraging fast failure and learning.
When you focus on these, you don’t need 10x engineers. You build a 10x organization.